Dot and Dust
by PrincessSara1998
Summary: Maybe Dot should have picked something else to clean off than a dusty book.


"Hmm... where did I put that...?" Dot wondered to herself. She glanced around her bedroom from the door, seeing this object and that. They weren't what she was looking for, so she ignored them.

Dot had just finished getting dressed and eaten her breakfast, and now it was almost time for her to meet up with her friends, Audrey and Lotta. That being said, she had a few minutes left before she would take off, and she'd gotten a great idea on what to bring with her today. The only problem, however, was that she didn't know where that thing was.

Dot went over to her desk and looked on top of it, then pulled open the drawer door for a peek inside. "Hmm, not here."

She closed it, then went over to her dresser. She scanned the top of that for a moment, then pulled one of the doors open as well. She didn't see anything other than her clothes. She pushed the door shut, pulled open another. Nothing but clothing items in there, either.

Once she'd closed that drawer door as well, Dot placed her hand on her face as she tried to think. Where was the last place she'd put the book she wanted to show her friends? Suddenly a thought occurred to her, and her eyes widened. She looked over at her closet.

Dot placed her hands together, took a deep breath, and then sighed. Looking into the closet wasn't something she enjoyed doing. Whatever items she'd decided to put in the closet, no matter what they were, always had a chance of being covered with dirt and dust the next time she wanted to inspect them. And she really, really didn't like dirt, let alone dust...

But perhaps what she was looking for was in the closet. After taking another deep breath and exhale to regain herself, Dot slowly headed over to her closet door. She placed her hand on the knob, turned it and pulled it open.

And almost as soon as she did so, she was greeted with a familiar scent, one that brought a faint tickle into her nose. Dot brought her wrist up to rub her nose, as though she knew what was going to happen. It was only one rub, but it seemed to help, and the itch slowly faded away.

Feeling more satisfied, Dot looked down at the floors of the closet, seeing a few boxes that she'd placed there a few weeks ago. She knelt down and took a few moments to inspect each box, opening and closing each lid as carefully as she could. Finally she found what was looking for, smiled in joy and pulled it out of one of the larger boxes.

It was a big storybook with the title, "The Adventures of the Hornicorns."

"Here it is!" Dot said as she stood up. She brought the book out of the closet and closed it behind her, then looked back down at the book. It looked a bit dusty from how long it'd been since she last used it.

Almost without thinking, Dot took a brief breath and blew onto the book - a big mistake. Clouds of dust began to blow into the air, and as soon as the dark-skinned, dark-haired girl had realized just what on Earth she'd done, the tickle in her nose had returned. Her eyes began to water as well, and her nose twitched.

"Ah, hah..." Dot inhaled, tilting her upper body back slightly. She was going to sneeze, but she didn't want to do it on the book. She only had barely enough time to turn her head away before she exploded. "Heeehhhh-tchew!"

As she released the sneeze, she threw one of her hands over her mouth, only a moment too late. In less than a second, she sneezed again, her nose still itching from the dust. "Tchuu!"

That one she managed to cover, but even then, the sneezy sensation in her nose hadn't gone away. Dot placed her book on the nearest surface she could find and fanned the air a bit, still smelling the dust she was trying to get away from her face.

"Ugh, this... this darn d-dust..." Dot sniffled slightly, but inhaled a thin cloud of dust that was still flying about in the air. She immediately gained a pre-sneeze face, gave one inhale, "Aaaah..." And sneezed again, this time putting her arm over her mouth. "Cheww! Ugh..."

She rubbed her nose a couple of times with her arm, hoping to bring some relief to her ticklish nose. When she finally pulled it away, she looked down at her book and picked it back up. Judging by the remaining itch in her nose, Dot could tell she couldn't bring this with her without a little dusting session.

Dot reached to the side and pulled out a little dust brush, made out of stiff animal hairs as opposed to feathers. (She didn't want to risk any feather fluff coming out of the duster and being blown goodness knows where, but that was beyond the point.) She rubbed it against the book, and off came the remaining dust - but she could feel her nostrils itch as soon as it did so.

"Ugh, n-not again..." Dot muttered to herself. She put the book down again just as the urge to sneeze returned. As her breath hitched, however, she placed the side of her forefinger underneath her nose and tried to hold back the sneeze.

But she had some dust on her finger, so the buildup was quick to follow.

"Aaaah... Haaaah... HAAAAAH-!" She tilted her head back once, then twice, and with the final inhale, her upper body was sent back as far as it could go again. She pulled her forefinger away from her nose and gave a particularly loud - but still cute-sounding - sneeze. To her internal disgust, she could feel saliva rushing out of her mouth. "AH-CHOO!"

To make things worse, she sneezed right into her duster, causing large amounts of dust to rise off of it. With that, Dot was sent into a sneezing fit, her nose reddening rapidly and her eyes dripping with tears. She even dropped her duster in the process.

"HAAH-CHUU! HEH-TCHEW! -TCHIOO! AH-CHEW! -TCHYEW! Ehh-TCHIUU! AH-CHYU!"

As Dot sneezed and sneezed, the air that she expelled from her mouth and nose managed to blow portions of dust away from her face. That being said, she could feel her nose beginning to feel stuffed up, and her eyes were still leaking.

"Hah-chyu! Ah-cheww! Haaah- Aaaah-choo! Heh... Haaaaahhh... Nnn- Ah-choo!"

With those final few sneezes, Dot's nose was finally satisfied, even though it was now a bright red shade. She looked a bit dazed as she rubbed her nose with her forefinger - the one she'd held the duster prior to her sneeze attack, not the book.

"Ugh... This, this is why I hate dusting," she said to herself. She looked back down at her book, still on her bed. There was no more dust on it. "Well, at least I can show this book to my friends now that it's clean."

"But for now..." Dot sniffled again, still rubbing her nose. "I've got to wash my hands and blow my nose..."

She weakly walked out of her bedroom and headed into the bathroom. Finally pulling her hand away from her nose, Dot washed her hands with soap and warm water at the sink, before wiping them dry with a towel. To clear her stuffy nose, she took a tissue and blew her nose as hard as was possible for her to. With a sigh of relief, Dot wiped her nose for a few seconds, and finally threw away the tissue.

Before long, she was out of the bathroom, and almost quickly, she came out of her bedroom with the Adventures of the Hornicorns book in her arms. Her nose had faded into a pink shade by this point, but she was sure it would get better in a few minutes. She headed down the stairs, bid her farewells, and headed out the door and off to the Harvey Girls' trailer.

Even if the shade of pink hadn't gone away from her nose, Dot wasn't going to bring up her sneezy mishap to Audrey or Lotta anytime soon. So much as seeing their reactions to what had happened would be far too embarrassing for her to take...


End file.
